


Unusual Business

by raktajinos



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Remix, Self Confidence Issues, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-13 04:54:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20576798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raktajinos/pseuds/raktajinos
Summary: Ianto was avoiding Jack. Not that he wanted to, but that he had to. They had no idea how long they were going to be telepathically linked and there were certain things he didn't want Jack knowing and there were things Ianto was confident he didn'twantto know.





	Unusual Business

**Author's Note:**

  * For [airspaniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Business As Usual](https://archiveofourown.org/works/157747) by [airspaniel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/airspaniel/pseuds/airspaniel). 

> I recommend reading Business as Usual by airspaniel because its fun and gives you the backstory as to how they're linked.

Ianto was avoiding Jack. 

It was only a matter of minutes, hours if he was lucky, that he could continue to get away with it - Jack was going to call him on it, confront him about it, which Ianto knew was probably the healthier option rather than just barracking himself in an isolated corner of the basement archives.

But alone was better than being near him…well no, being near Jack was always preferable if Ianto was being honest; he was like a moth to that man’s flame. 

He felt Jack’s presence before he heard him, which was the root of the problem. What had at first been a fun accident had quickly soured; the bizarre telepathic alien beads that had attached to himself and Jack enabling them to hear one another’s thoughts. At first, it had been fun, with Jack delighting in bombarding Ianto’s mind with filthy imagery - one such image had been during the meeting that day for the entire purpose of solving their predicament, and Jack had sent a particularly graphic fantasy about having Ianto sit on his lap during that very meeting. Ianto had trouble focusing as Jack slowed the fantasy down, letting Ianto feel how Jack would feel as Ianto sank down onto every hard inch of him. Jack, to add insult to injury, seemed unfazed by the whole exchange and participated in the meeting as if he wasn’t figuratively fucking Ianto’s brains out. 

So while that side of this predicament had been fun, there was a decidedly less fun side of it as well; Ianto valued his privacy and there were just some things he’d rather not Jack know about and then there were definitely some things that Ianto knew he did not want to know about from Jack - random memories of lovers past, for instance. 

“Ianto” he heard telepathically 

“Ianto!” Jack said, out loud this time as he discovered Ianto in the archive area. 

Jack leaned against the filing cabinet, looking all the image of a heart throb, sleeves casually rolled up, collar popped open, one leg crossover casually over the other, hair sort of foppishly falling across his face. He looked divine, Ianto thought, a flash of desire slaking his stomach. 

Jack grinned, “you look divine too,” he winked. 

Ianto rolled his eyes, chastising his lack of focus, “its easier than learning your abcs,”

“You are avoiding me, Ianto. Why?” Jack stated, “and for god sake, stop singing that damn song,” 

Ianto had taken to singing Locomotion by Kylie Minogue whenever he’d wanted to not have his thoughts on display, as a way to refocus his subconscious mind and not let his thoughts wonder. 

“Maybe I just wanted some privacy, to keep some of my thoughts private,”

“Darling, I know you switched over the creamer to a higher fat one ages ago,”

“It tastes better and that’s not what I’m talking about,”

“Then what, Ianto?” 

“I feel…exposed” he answered after a pause. 

“Ah,”

“And why aren’t you struggling with it? You’re like a thousand years old, surely there must be things you wouldn’t want me to just accidentally pick up,” 

“I take offence at the mention of that highly-inaccurate age. A thousand, really Ianto. Making me out to be some sort of cradle robber,”

Ianto just gave him a look, not falling for his attempts to derail the conversation; something he often did whenever something got too real for his liking. 

“I also can’t really pick up any errant thoughts from you, why is that?” 

“Well, when you’re a thousand years old stuff like this tends to happen once or twice; I took a class once on mental blocking,”

“A class?”

“Mhmm, got a certificate and everything. Was on the Denara homeworld, wonderfully telepathic species, part of their code of ethics to train foreigners on how to live amongst telepaths. They also taught me some great side bonuses of it too…” he trailed off. 

Ianto was hit with an extremely graphic image of himself buried to the hilt inside Jack who was bent over one of the archive tables. 

“Jack!” Ianto chastized, refusing to recognize the rush of blood that went to his cheeks and his groin at the image. 

“But doesn’t it sound like more fun than -” Jack said, grabbing the file from Ianto’s hands and reading its label, “- sorting the forgotten prophecies of some medieval witch?”

Jack tossed the file onto the open filing cabinet, pushing more into Ianto’s space, hands coming up to either side of Ianto’s face, trapping him between Jack’s body and the large filing cabinets. 

“I enjoy archival work,” Ianto said, recognizing it sounded like a last ditch effort even to him. 

“I know, dear, I love you despite that,” Jack teased. 

Panic rose in Ianto at the comment, and he rushed to silence his mind, “think nothing think nothing” he repeated over and over

Jack gave him a quizzical look. “Ianto?” 

“Yes?” he replied attempting to sound non-chalent. 

Jack stared at him, a sad confused look on his face, and Ianto felt the edges of Jack’s thoughts brush against his own; more a recognition that he was there rather than anything evasive. Ianto figured Jack could just force his way into Ianto’s thoughts and he appreciated that he did not. 

“Do you not love me?” Ianto heard Jack say, telepathically and he felt the uncertainty underneath the words, so unusual for Jack, always the bastion of confidence. 

“Is that what you didn’t want me to hear?” he followed up with. 

Ianto felt his stomach drop and he wanted to throw up; he also regretted that Jack must have picked up on that too, and that had to be unpleasant to second-hand experience. 

“No,” he hedged

“No?” Jack echoed, adjusting to pull away from the other man. 

Ianto reached out and grabbed a hold of Jack’s suspenders, preventing the other man from moving any further. 

“No, I do love you Jack….its the opposite,” he confessed, realizing this was the first time he’d verbalized it, the first time he was telling Jack he loved him. 

“I’m confused,” 

Ianto sighed, picking up the hint of confusion and fear coming from Jack, which was unsettling…but also comforting in an odd way, like showing that he was invested in Ianto, that he cared…which was really the root of what Ianto didn’t want him to know. The moment felt…important; in the way that if he let it pass by, he would regret it and they’d never be the same.

With a deep breath he let his mind and body relax and focused on all the panicked thoughts he’d been keeping repressed all day; thoughts that were always on the periphery of his mind, rearing their ugly head whenever he was feeling particularly maudlin or full of self-doubt, thoughts that exploited that, thoughts that fed on it, thoughts he never wanted to let out. 

He let them out. 

He let Jack see just how much Ianto loved him; how deeply he’d fallen for him, how much he enjoyed being with him, how much that scared him. He let Jack see how he feared Jack didn’t love him back or even like him a little bit back, how he feared just being convenient, how he feared not mattering to Jack, how he feared he stacked up against the thousands of others Jack had been with before, how he must pale in comparison, how he wondered why Jack even wanted to be with him when there were so many more attractive and interesting people who expressed interest; not in the least the entire office staff; why him, he wasn’t anything special. 

How he feared Jack just leaving him one day, becoming bored with him or just forgetting about him; how he feared Jack not leaving him and what growing old would be like - Jack staying the way he was and Ianto aging; his fears of awkwardness, his fears of the loneliness; his fear that he would be trapping Jack, keeping him locked into something he didn’t want to be in - even more of a fear now that Ianto was sharing all this with him, that Jack would feel beholden to him in some way, feel pity. 

He let Jack see why he was avoiding him; not wanting him to know any of this, for Ianto to keep this to himself, but also not wanting to have anything validated by hearing Jack’s thoughts, because he wasn’t anything special.

He let it all out in a bizarrely bold move for himself, the thoughts and images a mess of non-linearity, dispersed with a random smattering of memories of the two of them; graphic memories of stolen moments, insignificant memories of a jawline, or a laugh, or the feeling of wool, the smell of vetiver and coffee, all things that came to the surface when Ianto thought of Jack. 

His mind stilled when he was done; a sense of fatigue overcoming him. He didn’t let his eyes meet Jack’s, hadn’t the entire time he let it all pour out. He just stood there, gaze locked sort of off Jack’s right shoulder, bracing for whatever was going to happen next. He realized he was still holding onto Jack’s suspenders and he loosened the vice-like grip he had on them, releasing the fabric as he hedged a glance at Jack’s face, rationalizing that Jack could leave him because of it, or not, but ultimately it didn’t matter, it was important to get out. 

What he saw was frustratingly inconclusive; a blend of confusion, distress, warmth, and affection. 

“Ianto…” was all he said. 

Ianto sighed, “its fine Jack, I’m sorry,” his heart sinking, a flicker of embarrassment in his stomach. 

Jack moved quickly, lifting a hand to Ianto’s cheek and pulling him in for a kiss; a deep kiss that Ianto felt down in his knees, the kind of kiss that made Ianto forget about all the reasons Jack shouldn’t be with him and let him just enjoy the time he was given with the man. 

Jack pulled back, breathing heavily, resting his forehead against Ianto’s, his body leaning into his. 

“Ianto,” Jack started, lifting his head to make eye contact, “you are special.” 

Jack ran his thumb across Ianto’s bottom lip, “I know I’m bad with…this stuff…but I’m like a thousand years old so give me some slack,” 

Ianto chuckled. 

“But I do love you and I don’t want you to think you’re just convenient for me. You’re everything, Ianto,” Jack said. 

Ianto blushed and had to break eye contact, Jack’s gaze too intense, his words too flattering. 

He felt it as a trickle in his mind, Jack’s thoughts starting to wade into his consciousness, different in feel from the directed erotic images Jack had delighted in sending to him all day. These were less bold, unstructured, non-linear like Ianto’s but with a longer time frame, a much longer time frame. 

Ianto let the images, memories, and emotions wash through him; faces he didn’t know, memories from places and times in the past and in the future; memories of weddings, of Jack in a tux, exchanging rings, on holiday, different people of different genders, species, sizes, all happy memories, over and over again, memories collected from living a dozen different lifetimes. It was unnerving to see Jack so happy, to feel the joy he felt, the peace, so different than the man he knew now. And in a flash, Ianto began to understand why as a different set of memories began to flood in, loss, so much loss; devastating loss, with funeral after funeral of lost lovers, friends, allies, bedside goodbyes, battlefield deaths, tears, heartache, again and again; over a dozen lifetimes of loss, the same cycle.

Ianto wanted it to stop, the memories and the pain to stop; it was overwhelming. But he knew to let it continue, this was Jack’s life, the answers to the questions he had been so afraid to let into the universe. And then there was bleakness; the despair had stopped and now it was just memories of wondering the universe, a few blips of intimacy, but nothing noteworthy, the faces gone as quickly as they came into Ianto’s mind, just a sustained bleakness and resignation. Then he saw himself in the memories, seeing their first few meetings from Jack’s perspective, memories he knew so well feeling new all of a sudden. The rudeness with which Jack dealt with Ianto in those first few meetings, the irritation Jack felt towards him masking the attraction he also felt; disjointed flashes of memories, Ianto pouring coffee, pens on the floor, a laugh, Ianto in the archives. Ianto felt the warmth under these memories, felt the genuineness of Jack’s attraction to him, the reluctance with which Jack had fallen for him, the slow seduction, a wrist touch, a flirtatious comment, a knowing grin, an illicit kiss, more kissing, skin-on-skin, and a barrage of erotic memories came flooding into Ianto’s mind, his body responding in kind. 

The memories shifted once more, flashes of futures not yet come, of Jack’s fears; Ianto saw his own death over and over and over as imagined by Jack’s imagination; his death as a young man, and old man, in battle, of old age surrounded by grandchildren, of living forever. He felt Jack’s anger at the loss, at having to once again survive it, to outlive a loved one, the despair, the doubt at being able to do it again, the fear of having to. 

Ianto was overwhelmed; overwhelmed with the intimacy of it all, with the rawness of it all. 

The memories ebbed, a silence settling between them. 

“Everybody’s doing a brand new dance now…” 

“Seriously?” Jack exclaimed, “I bear my soul to you and the only thing you can say is that damn song?”

“It’s stuck in my head, I’m not doing it deliberately,” 

“And now its in my head, damn that song,” 

“You ever meet Kylie Minogue?” Ianto asked, 

“Yes, she’s hilarious and makes a mean White Russian, but back to the soul-bearing bit,” 

Ianto sighed, a happy sigh this time, “I’m everything,” 

“Yes,”

“You love me,” 

“Yes,” 

“Good. I love you too,” 

“I know,” Jack said, almost sheepishly, warming Ianto’s heart, “you love me a lot,” 

“I do,”

“Good,” and he pulled him in for another kiss, this one more gentle. 

“Did I see the Doctor in those memories?” Ianto teased, fingers playing absently with Jack’s suspenders.

“Yes, a couple of them, but don’t bring it up to him - he continues to deny his attraction to me, despite the memories to the contrary,” Jack replied, grinning. 

“His loss is my gain,” 

“Apparently. Don’t let being better than a Time Lord go to your head though; arrogance isn’t a good look for you,” 

“Well, I am everything, so how can it not”

Jack laughed, “I shouldn’t have told you that, I’ve created a monster”

“I’m really glad you did though,” Ianto sobbered. 

“Ya, ya, don’t go around telling people I’ve gone soft, I have a reputation,” 

“As the Doctor’s Bedfellow,” 

“Shut up,” 

“Does Martha know?” 

A pained, but proud look came over Jack’s face, “she may have….watched,” 

“Oh my god,” 

“Don’t get upset,”

“I’m not. I’m everything, remember,”

“Yes, you are,” he said softly before pulling Ianto into another kiss, this time with more heat, pressing his body up against the other man, letting him feel how everything he was, leaving Ianto breathless. 

“You know I’m going to talk with her about this, compare notes,” he said

“Better give you something really good to brag about then, eh,” Jack said, making quick work of Ianto’s belt, “now shut up and get naked, teaboy”


End file.
